The discussion below is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter. Aspects of the invention relate to a method and system for reducing the proliferation of electronic messages. More specifically, aspects relate to a method and system for reducing the proliferation of unsolicited electronic messages in a server system comprising one or more servers for distributing said electronic messages and at least a first user device and a second user device arranged for receiving said electronic messages from said server system.
E-mail spam may generally be defined as unsolicited and/or undesired e-mail messages received by an e-mail recipient.
The amount of e-mail spam messages has dramatically increased over the last decade. The reason for that may be found in the huge number of addressees that can be reached with an e-mail at negligible costs. This combination of factors together with the obligatory delivery of e-mail has made e-mail or, more generally, electronic messaging an attractive communication medium for advertisement of a variety of products and services. Collections of e-mail addresses of people all over the world can be bought from numerous parties at very low cost. E-mail spam messages now account for more than 90% of all e-mail messages transmitted over the internet. As a consequence, electronic resources are wasted to a serious extent.
The increase of the amount of e-mail spam messages has triggered others to provide e-mail spam filters. These filters can be installed both on the side of the server and on the side of the client devices to detect and delete e-mail spam messages without troubling the user. Typically, these filters analyse e-mail messages and match the analysis results against e-mail spam rules in order to recognize e-mail spam. These e-mail spam rules are designed on the basis of known typical characteristics of e-mail spam messages, such as the number of addressees in the e-mail header or the occurrence of certain words in the e-mail body.
However, new forms of spam will not always be recognized and intercepted by these filters, since the e-mail spam rules are not able to recognize these new forms of spam since these spam rules for the new form of e-mail spam message could not yet have been implemented in the spam filter. As a consequence, a continuous race exists between e-mail spammers and spam filter providers, the latter by definition lagging behind the former. On the other hand, solicited and desired e-mail messages are sometimes filtered from the e-mail box of a recipient, because the e-mail message is qualified as spam as dictated by the e-mail spam rule set of the spam filter.
Furthermore, if e-mail spam filters are installed, the filters analyze each individual e-mail message in order to detect e-mail spam messages. As a consequence, message transfer is delayed and resources are wasted.
US 2007/0106734 discloses a system comprising a server and a method for limiting proliferation of unwanted electronic messages. The server can receive a notification from a first user identifying a first electronic message as spam and compare parameters associated with the first electronic message against spam criteria. Responsive to the parameters meeting the spam criteria, other instances of the first electronic message can be blocked from being sent to other users and a credit notification for an account of the first user can be generated. A second user from whom the spam originated can be added to a blocked sender list of the first user. Responsive to identifying a second electronic message generated from the first user to the second user, a correction charge notification can be generated for the account of the first user.
The system and method of US 2007/0106734 require the use of a spam filter and matching spam parameters against spam criteria. Only when spam parameters are identified, users may send spam notifications and other instances may be blocked.
It will be apparent that there is a need in the art for an improved or different method and system for reducing the proliferation of electronic messages, in particular e-mail spam messages.